How Flipkart hopes to benefit from its offline and online Fliptomania stores

India’s online shopping space has evolved to such a stage where for many Flipkart has come to symbolise the burgeoning Indian e-commerce sector and has become an investor darling, raising $1 billion in a single round of funding in July.

So why would the poster-boy of the country’s online shopping industrymove from clicks to brick-and-mortar?

Because the company’s employees said it was a good idea, according to Arathi Vedantham, director, internal communication at Flipkart.

“Flipsters (what we call people working at Flipkart) kept asking for a place from where they could buy different, funky, Flipkart branded merchandise that they could show off to their friends and family,” she told Firstbiz via email.

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The first store, called Fliptomania, was opened in one of the company’s Bangalore offices.

The store sells everything from apparel to stationery to laptop stickers, but don’t expect Flipkart brands like Digiflip to make an appearance any time soon. Vedantham said the teams were still in early discussions about the move.

Flipkart has plans to open similar stores in its Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata offices, but before that the company wants to take Fliptomania online.

“This should happen in a month’s time - and that will make it easier for employees to pick up their favourite Flipkart merchandise no matter where they are located,” Vedantham said.

At present the store cater primarily to in-house staffand about 10 percent of the footfall comes from non-employees.

According toan article in The Times of India, the products in the store are economically priced so that the company can cover the costs involved andthe move is seen boosting employee pride in the company.

The idea to open a store catering exclusively to a company’s branded goods seems novel. While e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay have items with their logos on them, these don’t seem to be produced and retailed by the companies themselves, but rather by independent sellers. In India, it’s probably safe to say that Flipkart is the first e-commerce site to officially sell branded wares.

So what can Flipkart hope to achieve apart from letting itsemployees flaunt company-branded mugs and laptop stickers?

Pragya Singh, associate vice president, retail & consumer products at Technopak said the move serves multiple purposes and has many benefits, though they may be intangible. For one thing, it makes employees feel like they have a voice in the company.

“The workforce gets a sense of belonging to the company, like they provided their feedback and the senior management acted on it,” she told Firstbiz.

Owning merchandise from the Flipkart brand will also enhance their pride for the company, she said.

Another beneficiary of the strategy is the Flipkart brand itself. By sharing and gifting Flipkart-branded items, the employees are helping enhance the brand equity of the company, Singh said.